Film festival stages return to Capital

AN international festival of cinema is to be held in the Capital next year.

Organisers of the Bootleg Film Festival said they were looking for submissions of short and feature-length films from independent directors ahead of the 2013 event.

The festival, which began in the basement gallery of a Glasgow coffee shop in 2008, has already travelled to Swansea, London and Toronto.

Now organisers have decided to bring the festival, which celebrates the best in independent film-making, back to the Capital.

The event will take place in March next year at the Banshee Labyrinth, in Niddry Street, with organisers saying the venue’s vaults and chambers would provide the perfect backdrop for festival screenings and late-night entertainment.

Organisers said: “The Banshee Labyrinth is Edinburgh’s most haunted venue. So it’s fitting that, in our history of hosting indie films in the coolest spaces, that we should come here for Bootleg Edinburgh in 2013.

“The vaults and chambers, once the reserve of the city’s criminals, will serve as the ideal space to screen the best films from around the world in the fantastic cinema screen.”